| Submit your comments on this article |
| Down Under |
| Villagers Tortured, Beheaded in Solomon Islands |
| 2003-07-02 |
| Followers of a notorious Solomon Islands warlord tortured then beheaded at least three men and razed an entire village, said survivors who fear being used as human shields against an Australian-led intervention force. With Australia planning to lead 2,000 police and troops to quell violence in the lawless and near-bankrupt South Pacific state, survivors told Reuters this week of an attack 10 days ago by warlord Harold Keke in his Weathercoast stronghold. Augustine Manakako, a former senior government official, said every house in Marasa, a village of about 500 people south of the capital Honiara, was burned to the ground. ``It was on a Sunday afternoon... when the militants came, grabbed three men and took them to the beach, took their clothes off and started parading them in front of the rest of the villagers,'' a tearful Manakako said. ``Bit by bit they broke their bones and finally cut their necks off,'' he said. Manakako said he and hundreds of other villagers fled after the attack and trekked 50 km (30 miles) overland to reach refugee camps outside Honiara. Manakako said villagers feared that Keke would use them as human shields to block any advance of the Australian-led force, which could be in the Solomons by the end of July after the local government makes a formal request for help. Australia and New Zealand have said Keke, a mysterious figure who rose to prominence after a 2000 coup, would have to be dealt with by the intervention force. Keke refused to sign an Australian-brokered peace deal after the coup that stemmed some of the violence between rival ethnic militias from Guadalcanal and neighboring Malaita islands. Leader of the Guadalcanal Liberation Front, Keke is accused of killing dozens of people, including government minister Father Augustine Geve last year. His militia began fighting Malaitan rivals in 1998 in land disputes around Honiara. Hundreds died in the fighting and 30,000 people were driven from their homes. The 1,000-island Solomons archipelago — scene of some of the fiercest Pacific battles of World War II — has slipped deeper into chaos since the 2000 coup and is teetering on bankruptcy. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |